r.

There were times when he longed for the backwoods life; when the smell
of the pines and the firs and the juniper got into his nostrils; when he
heard, in imagination, the shouts of the river-men as they chopped down
the trees, sawed the boles into standard lengths, and plunged the big
timbers into the stream, or round the fire at night made call upon the
spirit of recreation. In imagination, he felt the timbers creaking
and straining under his feet; he smelt the rich soup from the cook's
caboose; he drank basins of tea from well-polished metal; he saw the
ugly rows in the taverns, where men let loose from river duty tried to
regain civilian life by means of liquor and cards; he heard the stern
thud of a hard fist against a piece of wood; he saw twenty men spring
upon another twenty with rage in their faces; he saw hundreds of men
arrived in civilization once again striking for their homes and
loved ones, storming with life. He saw the door flung open, and the
knee-booted, corduroyed river-man, with red sash around his waist and
gold rings in his ears, seize the woman he called wife and swing her
to him with a hungry joy; he saw the children pushed gently here, or
roughly, but playfully, tossed in the air and caught again; but he also
saw the rough spirits of the river march into their homes like tyrants
returned, as it were, cursing and banging their way back to their
rightful nests.

Occasionally he would wish to be in it all again, out in the wild woods
and on the river and in the shanty, free and strong and friendly and a
bit ferocious. All he had known of the backwoods life filled his veins,
tortured him at times.

From the day that both wills were made and signed, no word had been
spoken concerning them between him and John Grier. He admired certain
characteristics of John Grier; some secret charities, some impulsive
generosity, some signs of public spirit. The old man was fond of
animals, and had given water-troughs to the town; and his own horses and
the horses he used in the woods were always well fed. Also, in all his
arrangements for the woods, he was generous. He believed in feeding his
men well. It was rough food--beans, potatoes, peas, lentils, pork in
barrels-salted pork; but there was bread of the best, rich soup, pork
well boiled and fried, with good tea, freshly made. This was the regular
fare, and men throve on it.

One day, however, shortly after Carnac's return home, there came a
change in t